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FiberLight, a growing competitive fiber-centric service provider, on Thursday announced that Michael Miller, the company's founder and CEO, is retiring.

Miller, who spent 16 years leading the company, said "[r]etiring from FiberLight will allow me to pursue opportunities that I have wanted to do for some time."

Taking on the leadership role for the company will be Paul Pierron, a 35-year telecom veteran, who was recently named FiberLight's chief operating officer. He will retain the COO title for now.

In his expanded role, Pierron has plans to continue revenue growth and improve operations.

FiberLight may have seen its ups and downs over the course of its 16-year history, but in recent years the service provider has been aggressively building out its fiber network.

Many of the company's key network builds have been in high growth areas, including a 3,000-mile network build last year in Texas, in addition to earlier builds in Baltimore, Charlottesville, Va., and Miami.

At that time, FiberLight said the CoBank funding would give it the capital to support $300 million in contracts that it won "for some large network expansion projects in the state of Texas."

Given the ongoing consolidation of the competitive wholesale and retail market, including the recently announced $2 billion merger of Lightower and Sidera, speculation has arisen in recent years that FiberLight will also be an acquisition target.

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